There is a glance to an expensive watch (a present, of course), and the cuffs of the navy blue broadcloth shirt half obscure it in the turning of the wrist mid-dressing. The pants are likewise navy, gabardine, the shoes are a deep, chocolate brown, the tie is striped rugby, chocolate brown and green.
     Such a magpie is the Montague.
     Golden hair is mussed, more up than down. He is turning, twisting, leaving the sanctity of his mirrored reflection and heading into the other bedroom (there are two and they are both used liberally).

     A phone rings. The one nearest. A familiar buzzing and then gentle noise, brought on by a familiar on the other end...

     The phone is picked up quickly, "Chez Chester," he says, grinning already. He expects it is 'Chester' on the line. Chester, whom he has not seen in a day or so. But he expects him to return. He has something Chester needs. Valan Montague is on the move again, you can hear him, moving through the joined townhouse.

     "J'ai eu besoin de cela certainement," Edward purrs. He's somewhere in the city, for the traffic is almost deafening. "That sound. And the man that goes with it." He remembers everything he loves about you. "Too long, baby. How are you?" he asks, done with the leering for now.

     "I am well," as if he is practicing his English all over again. He is just teasing with you, as he says. "I will allow myself one moment of sentimentality, here it is. When I do not get to wake up with you and have you first thing in the evening, it fucks my whole night." Sentiment as he gives it. "And not in the way I like!" Your Montague is smiling, slipping cigarettes into his navy jacket, pinstriped. "I like this baby... " Just hearing it....
     He has to pause a moment...
     "So... I was thinking of going out to The Library," a book-bar, funny that. "But if you are going to make me a better offer... well... "

     He's fantasizing. It's in the hesitancy of his response. The return to the present after lingering in your voice. The smile on his lips.
     "The Library? I think...I can do better than that."
     "But not so much now, ami. I need you to do something for me, hmm? For us. Quickly. You'll need to pack a bag for us. Keep it light, oui. Lock up tight," a protocol, "...and meet me at Stansted. Bring just the core, baby, just what we need." In case we don't get to return to the house. "It's real this time." Potential evacuation.

     His feet stop their forward progress and he pivots just shy of the stairwell. He blinks. And then Valan says: "Oui... certainement...I can be there in an hour...will that be okay? Should I ...leave the car here? Take a cab?" Will a car be too much to worry about?
     You hear him moving again, to the bedroom. He shifts the phone in his hand as he opens the door to the closet and wardrobes. "Where at Stansted?"

     "Drive yours," Edward says. "General aviation. AA, stand BD. Midlothian jet, but it's probably not marked. I'll find you," he explains. "If...I am not there in...2 hours, you need to leave with William and Ian without me, alright, ami?"
     And his voice remains light. In love.
     "Don't stay at the house long," Edward notes. Not after this call. "Get out, watch yourself. I will see you anon."
     "And by the by, I belong to you."
     Threat or promise, hard to tell.

     "AA... BD... oui," committing it to memory. "I understand, ami." He understands that he cannot understand it all, and in that he understands everything he needs to. At least at this juncture. "I am getting the things now," you can hear him rustling around. "I will see you shortly... and I will show you ... how good it is to belong to a Montague."
     Valan doesn't press for answers, he doesn't bombard with questions. He moves with the alacrity that the seriousness couched in your light tone demands.
     He pauses only to say: "I love you, too... watch your ass. I want to grab it later, mais oui?" There is a wink in his tone.
     But also a farewell...

     "We'll trade," Edward replies, laughing. "A lot."
     The connection is ended with a soft click.

     The phone is placed in the inside pocket. A gun taken from a drawer, tossed in the bag with one change of clothes and shoes. The quick wrap of one jacket around another and rolled. A small bag quickly filled with essentials. Cigarettes, clothing, German-made weapons. These are a few of Our Favorite Things...
     Valan takes the bag quickly, leaving the bedroom. He pauses only for a second, pivoting, twisting to turn off the light...

It's not What you thought When you first began it You got What you want Now you can hardly stand it though By now you know It's not going to stop It's not going to stop It's not going to stop 'Til you wise up...      ...Bodies pass to and fro, two by two, moving like time lapse. Up and down, tables taken, tables abandoned, a swirl of trays and clinking glasses on the bar. The sound of taps tapped, Guinness poured and Harp. There's no music tonight, the middle of the week, the televisions are on and a dart match occupies a group of large-bodied men and aspiring young women...      Their voices mean nothing to me. The laughter washes over, fucking just dissolves, less substance than air. I've ruined everything....      A large hand surrounds a half-full pint (it's a damn sight more optimistic than he is). The evidence of the many pints before it have been swept away, and despite the best efforts of Davy's Girls to get him to slow down, or stop altogether, to even get him cut off from consumption, the large man in the back booth -- Davy's Booth -- is drunk. He's consumed more Guinness than half of Dublin and likely more than any man in London.      Davydd Llywelyn has had a shite night. Second in a row, actually, and it doesn't look to improve the way he's putting the pints down. It's typical. In the midst of despair and doubt, he drinks until all caring is swept away like brush by a raging river...      There's no amount of singing that's going to fix this. No amount of magic. Isn't that what you know, you shite? Isn't this what you feared?      Leathered elbows rest on the table, his head in his hands. No one around him, no one daring to ask for a song tonight. Even the waitresses give him a wide berth. Even Kelly Morgan, tending the bar, no longer trying to maintain some order or control over the sheer amount Davydd continues to consume. He's given up      What have I done...      I mean, apart from wrecking every friendship I had, bolloxing around like a big bull's bollocks...      Davydd lifts his head, clasped fingers hide his mouth, his red-ringed eyes are easy to see. Has to be the cigarette smoke and the drunkenness...      Right?      Dark green eyes look to the wood grain of the table, watching it shift and spin on its own. He doesn't even have the heart to get sick from it...

     The world parted for his arrival. A twist here, a turn there. Edward made his way across the bar, through the surging sea of warm skin heated with even warmer blood.
     It's a wonder any Kindred can walk among them.
     "Davy," Edward's voice says as he leans backwards against the bar, elbows on the cushion and wood. His leathered elbow touches your own, and he looks out evenly among the crowd. A smile forms when he turns his expression to you. Edward exhales and brows arch, as if to say, How could I go anywhere?
     There's no rush to speak. Just a name. His nearest arm extends and pats at your back. Edward licks his bottom lip and sighs. "Come on," he whispers. Let's have a talk.

     He missed your arrival. When you're sudden beside him, when you say his name and pat his back, Davydd's turning and sitting back a little. And not at all gracefully. "Hey..." he manages to croak out -- pints and cigarettes and grief. Brooding, bloodied, big Welshman. You've seen that face a time or two. Over absolutely nothing. Now it's Something, it's a reason for being...
     Sparkling green eyes, more glassy than keen, look this way and that at a moving, bustling, hurrying, colorful world and he pats his jacket, smokes still on him, and he nods. "Aye..." a great exhale as he slowly starts to come up out of the booth. The frown's still permanent and he starts tossing bills on the table in two's. He's probably overpaying. Fuck it, he gives it all...
     He doesn't look at you much, but maybe it's hard enough to concentrate on remaining upright. Davydd looks at you as he starts to move, eyes all red at the corners, complexion high. That's pure emotion,, that. He raises his arm and gives a general wave to the girls and boys, calling none out by name, and he stumbles, shuffling toward the exit.

You're sure there's a cure
And you have finally found it
You think one drink
Will shrink you 'til you're underground
And living down but it's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up...

     The arm beneath his belongs to his friend. Edward only smiles as he puts himself around Davydd and guides him to the door, bobbing his head to encourage people to move out of the way. Once outside, Edward turns them towards the left, then another left towards the alley and where his bike sits.
     "Here, Davy," Edward murmurs, sympathy in his voice. Apology for Davydd's current pain. That wasn't intentional either. "Take a sit there," Edward says, lowering his friend to a curb edge near his bike.
     How many times have we done this?

     "Want a smoke?" He tends toward the heavy aspiration of words rather than pure slurring, making Welsh out of English. 'What' is 'Hwat', 'a' is 'ah' and 'smoke' has a few extra vowels. "I'm sorrah, Edward-bach," his voice tightens immediately and that face goes red. "I've fooked it for certes..."
     Davydd swallows and looks at the bike a minute. Thinking of William maybe, he frowns, falls quiet and plops down beside it. It's good the bike weighs as much as it does, otherwise they'd have gone tumbling together.
     "Folks're tired of hearing me say it... anyway..." He takes a breath and sighs it out a moment later. Hands fumble in his jacket, ungraceful, dexterity all but lost. He's wavering even sitting...
     The world continues to give a spin even though he's sitting still...
     "Fuck me," he softly curses at himself. Trying to get one cigarette out of the pack is as hard as threading a needle at the moment...

     Edward takes a seat too, exhaling a deep sigh as he crashes beside. "S'alright, Davy," Edward offers, looking up to the dark sky. It's hidden by buildings and skyscrapers nearby, and doubly covered with clouds. There's nothing there, Edward thinks, then looks over to his friend as he fumbles for a cigarette.
     "You," Edward twists, reaching over to fish a smoke out of the pack, "...are my dearest. I have but three now," he explains, voice tinged with some sadness. "I love each of you, more than I know sometimes. Here," he whispers, getting one out and offering it. He'll hold onto the pack, to make things easier.
     "I'm sorry, Davy, for what I said," Edward goes on. "Maybe...you won't remember this. But I am. Never would I turn my back on you, Davy. Never. Never in a million years...."
     Edward looks into his jacket and fishes out his lighter, striking it and offering the flame.

     He looks at you, then at the cigarette with an expression of 'What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?' before his mind catches up into a nod of thanks. He doesn't go to light it. Maybe he's afraid he'll catch the fuck on fire. He shakes his head. "I ... shouldn't have done it... and not like that..." he shakes his head, then turns it toward the sudden flame offered by your hand.
     Smoke billows out a moment later, spilling out like fog, becoming fog in the alley down the way. Davydd sniffs, rubs his nose, like he's snorted gak, though you know that's not his cuppa. "Aye, well," he gravels out, "...don't be sorry. You were right t' say it, Edward... I love you, too... you're a good man. A ... good friend. Deserve a sight better than me poppin off like that, you know. And Gwilym..."
     There's another shake of his head and Davydd just sighs. What have I done? "It all... sounded sae good in m' head, fucking hit my mouth with all the grace of bull bollocks. Now look at the fucking mess of it all..."

     "Nah," Edward smiles, looking across the alley to the opposing wall. "The mess was made a long time ago." He shrugs. The lighter's snapped closed and slipped into his jacket pocket once again. The Browning glints in its holster as Edward's hand comes out again and he turns to face his companion on the kerb.
     "Do you remember the first time we met, Davy?" Edward smiling as he's close, chin almost at shoulder. Edward laughs, "Fuck, I was...a few years at El-Adar. No, more than that. A decade or two, was it? You were one of the few outsiders I'd seen in that time..." He was so cloistered. "Someone who looked far more like me, than I'd looked like most of them..."

     Perched on the kerb, you look like the inspiration for Twa Corbies...
     "I never did understand the need to pray to excess," Davydd rumbles out. "It was the fucking loudest oasis I ever found my way into. And ...aye," he looks at you sitting close, and he nods. There's a fondness in his eyes, and a sadness. "I remember, Edward-bach. I remember thinking: he's the biggest fucking Spaniard I've ever seen... "
     The corners of his mouth quirk up and he snorts a laugh. "That place...El-Adar..." He looks down at the concrete and cobble beneath his feet. "Good food, I remember that much. Best dates outside of the Holy Land..." Always food with this man...

     Edward smirks. Spaniard. It couldn't have been his sun-kissed skin. "The food is good," he nods, lifting brows. An aspect he'd forgotten.
     Edward looks to you again. "I couldn't stand not having you around, Davy. Just so you know. You heard it from me. If something happened to you, I....I don't know what I'd do. You or Wills." Or that other one.

     Davydd nods, eyes looking at you then at the concrete again. The cigarette is turning to ash in his hands, held but forgotten. "I'm... sorry I wasn't a better brother, a better friend. I ... shoulda ... I ... didn't do this life right, Edward-bach. Now... not sure how to make it right... for any of us..."
     He looks at you, arms folding on his knees, head tilted to the side, hand in his wavy red hair, flame-like, his cigarette held (thankfully) in his other hand.
     Otherwise he might set himself the fuck on fire afterall...
     "He's pissed," he notes of William. "I could see it in him. Like you had the right to be. But... the two of y'... y'mean... more'n to me than anyone I've met on this earth. Y're like... brothers and sons and uncles and friends. I've sons of m'own, but... there's none I'd have left this earth to protect than the two of you...fuck me... I'm speaking in the past tense," Davydd suddenly rolls out with affectionate humor...

     "Yeah," Edward grins, feeling the words in the air. Past tense. Edward smiles and pats your back again, leaning in, like old school-chums, to whisper a secret.
     "Wills loves you, too, Davy. We know it," how we feel. "I have...a picture of us from the War, Davy, us together in a pub, eh? With drinks in our hands, and we're laughing, mate. I can't forget that. Not ever," he says softly, as if tears are about to fall.
     Instead, Davydd, there is a sharp prick at your neck, beneath the skin. The thinnest pierce of the skin.
     "It'll always be that way between us, Davy. Friends always."
     Even if it is only one-sided.

     He leaned back at you, two school boys on a smoke break, sitting on a kerb, a half-tilt of a smile, drunken. "I never thought I'd fucking miss the Krauts," he grumbles. Or those days. Those were hard nights. But they were good nights. He knew what to do with himself then. He knew where he was. Maybe it's not understanding he needs. Maybe it's war...
     By the pricking of our thumbs...
     ...something wicked this way comes...
     Damn bugs. As soon as the drunken, muddled thought pops up, as soon as his pint-addled brain begins to register the pinch of it and before it can even do the barest arithmetic to put two and two to bits, he slumps over. A hand half lifting to swat away the London gnat thuds against his own trousers.
     A second later, and he is slumping onto the cement of the street.

     Edward sits for a second, staring at the side of the building across the alley. He lifts his hands to the front of himself, wiping his eyes with his left as he slides the hypodermic back into his jacket pocket.
     "Always, Davy," Edward murmurs, pushing himself to his feet and bringing his friend with him.
     The ride to Stansted will not be so long. It's a cool evening to share a jaunt with a friend. Edward places his friend on the bike, careful to close his jacket and rest his feet on the exhausts. After patting himself down to make sure everything's in place, Edward swings his own leg over the bike, straddling the machine behind his companion. A turn of the key and a flick of the clutch, the bike rumbles to life. With light on, Edward brings his feet up against his friend's, and the bike rides off down the Strand and across the bridge in search of the M5.

Posted by rowan at May 02, 2004 11:24 PM